The Hunchback of Notre Dame (film)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1996 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. The film was released in theaters on June 21, 1996 by Walt Disney Pictures. The thirty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, the film is based on the basic story of Victor Hugo's novel of the same name, but changes most of its substance. The plot centers on Quasimodo, the main character of Notre Dame; he is the kindhearted deformed bell-ringer, but he struggles to gain acceptance into society. Quasimodo believes he was abandoned by his parents as an infant. He was rescued by the priests of Notre Dame. So he lives there as a bell ringer. When Quasimodo is crowned King of the Fools during Topsy Turvy Day, the hunchback is ordered beaten by the guards as punishment. But Esmerelda, a hot-blooded but compassionate gypsy shows pity on him and helps free him from his punishment. The lovely Esmerelda is the first woman to show kindness to Quasimodo, and he soon falls in love with her. Plot The movie opens in 1482 Paris with Clopin, a gypsy puppeteer, telling a group of children the story of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The story begins as three gypsies sneak illegally into Paris but are ambushed by a squadron of soldier-like thugs working for Judge Claude Frollo, the Minister of Justice and de facto ruler of Paris. A gypsy woman attempts to flee with her baby, but Frollo catches and kills her just outside Notre Dame, intending to kill her deformed baby (Frollo says to the Archdeacon that the baby is "an unholy demon" and that he is "sending it back to Hell where it belongs"), but the Archdeacon appears and accuses him of murdering an innocent woman. Frollo denies that he is in the wrong saying his conscience is clear, but the Archdeacon declares he can lie to himself all he wants, but he cannot hide his crime from heaven ('the eyes of Notre Dame', the statues of the saints outside the cathedral). Fearing for his soul and to atone for his sin, Frollo reluctantly agrees to raise the deformed child in the Cathedral as his son, naming him Quasimodo. Twenty years later, Quasimodo has developed into a kind yet isolated young man with three gargoyles as his only company, he is constantly told by Frollo that he is a monster who would be rejected by the uncaring outside world. Despite these warnings, Quasimodo sneaks out of the Cathedral to attend the Feast of Fools, where he is crowned King of Fools but immediately humiliated by the crowd when Frollo's thugs start a riot. Frollo, in the audience, refuses to help Quasimodo, and the crowd only stops when a kind and beautiful gypsy, Esmeralda, frees Quasimodo from his restraints and openly defies Frollo. Frollo orders her arrested, but she escapes by means of illusions, which Frollo calls "witchcraft." Frollo scolds Quasimodo and sends him back inside the Cathedral. Esmeralda follows Quasimodo to find him, but is herself followed by Phoebus, Frollo's Captain of the Guard. Phoebus, who himself does not approve of Frollo's methods, refuses to arrest her inside the Cathedral saying that she has claimed 'Sanctuary' and thus cannot be arrested as long as she remains in Notre Dame, Frollo finally leaves when the Archdeacon orders him out, but not before warning Esmeralda that his thugs will capture her the minute she leaves the Cathedral. Esmeralda finds Quasimodo in the bell tower and befriends him. As gratitude for helping him in the crowd, Quasimodo helps Esmeralda escape Notre Dame. In return, she leaves him with a map to the gypsy hideout, the Court of Miracles, should he ever choose to leave Notre Dame again. Frollo himself begins to realize his lustful feelings for Esmeralda and wishes to be free of them to escape eternal damnation. He soon learns of Esmeralda's escape, and orders a city-wide manhunt for her, burning down houses in his path. Realizing that Frollo has lost his mind, Phoebus defies Frollo, who orders him executed, but is aided in escape by Esmeralda. After being hit by an arrow, Phoebus falls into the river, but is rescued by Esmeralda, who takes him to Quasimodo for refuge. Frollo soon returns to the Cathedral, forcing Quasimodo to hide Phoebus. Knowing that Quasimodo helped Esmeralda escape, Frollo bluffs that he knows where the Court of Miracles is and that he intends to attack it at dawn with a battalion. After he leaves, Phoebus requests Quasimodo's help in finding the Court before Frollo. Using the map Esmeralda left, they find it and are almost hung by the gypsies as spies, but are saved when Esmeralda intervenes and clears up the misunderstanding. However, Frollo's army appears and captures them all, with Frollo revealing that he followed Phoebus and Quasimodo. Frollo then orders Esmeralda burned at the stake after she refuses his proposal of her becoming his mistress. Quasimodo, tied up in the bell tower, initially refuses to help, but when he sees Esmeralda in pain he gives in to his anger and rescues her, yelling "Sanctuary." As Frollo orders his men to attack the cathedral, Phoebus ignites a mutiny among the people of Paris who have had enough of Frollo's tyranny and a battle ensues in the street between the citizenry and Frollo's thug army. Quasimodo places Esmeralda's unconscious body on a bed and pours a cauldron of molten copper onto the streets to ensure nobody gets inside. Frollo, however, manages to break in and force his way past the Archdeacon. Quasimodo, believing Esmeralda to be dead, breaks down beside her body as Frollo comes into the room to kill him with a dagger. Quasimodo, in his fury, fights back and almost kills Frollo but stops when Esmeralda wakes up. Frollo chases them on to the balcony, where he and Quasimodo fight for the final time. The battle ends with both Frollo and Quasimodo falling from the balcony. While Frollo falls to his death, Quasimodo is caught by Phoebus on a lower floor, and the three friends reunite. As the citizens celebrate their victory over Frollo, Quasimodo reluctantly emerges from the Cathedral to face the populace again, only this time, he is hailed as a hero. Voice Cast :Japanese *'Kanji Ishimaru' as Quasimodo *'Chizu Hosaka' as Esmeralda *'Soma Suzuki' as Captain Phoebus *'Takeshi Kusaka' as Judge Claude Frollo *'Toshihide Mura' as Frollo's singing voice *'Akihiko Mitsueda' as Clopin *'Kiyotaka Imai' as Victor *'Atsushi Haruta' as Hugo *'Misao Suetsugu' as Laverne *'Goro Matsumiya' as The Archdeacon *'Morimasa Sagawa' as the archdeacon's singing voice :English *Tom Hulce as Quasimodo *Demi Moore as Esmeralda *Heidi Mollenhauer as Esmeralda's singing voice *The late Tony Jay as Judge Claude Frollo *Kevin Kline as Captain Phoebus *Paul Kandel as Clopin *Charles Kimbrough as Victor *Jason Alexander as Hugo *Mary Wickes as Laverne *David Ogden Stiers as The Archdeacon Production :Development The idea to adapt The Hunchback of Notre Dame came from development executive David Stainton in 1993, who was inspired to turn Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame into an animated feature film after reading the Classics Illustrated comic book adaptation then proposed the idea to then-studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg. Following Beauty and the Beast, Gary Trousdale had taken the opportunity to take a break from directing, instead spending several months developing storyboards for The Lion King. Following this, Trousdale and Kirk Wise subsequently attempted developing an animated feature based on the Greek myth of Orpheus titled A Song of the Sea, adapting it to make the central character a humpback whale and setting it in the open ocean. The concept obstinately refused to pull together, but while they were working on the project they were summoned to meet with Katzenberg. "During that time," explained Trousdale, "while we working on it, we got a call from Jeffrey. He said, 'Guys, drop everything – you're working on Hunchback now.'"According to Wise, they believed that it had "a great deal of potential...great memorable characters, a really terrific setting, the potential for fantastic visuals, and a lot of emotion." Production on The Hunchback of Notre Dame went underway in the summer of 1993.6 In October 1993, directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, art director David Goetz, Roy Conli, Ed Ghertner, Will Finn, Alan Menken, and Stephen Schwartz took a trip to Paris, France for ten days; three days were devoted to exploring Notre Dame including a private tour of rarely glimpsed sites as actual passageways, stairwells, towers, and hidden room within which Hugo set his actions. Also included were visits to the Palace of Justice and an original location of the Court of Miracles. :Writing Writer Tab Murphy was brought on board to write the screenplay, and it was decided early on that Quasimodo would be the center of the story, as he was in past live-action film adaptations. A love story between Quasimodo and Esmeralda was originally conceived, according to Murphy, but "we decided to make Phoebus more heroic and central to the story. Out of that decision grew the idea of some sort of a triangle between Quasimodo, Esmeralda and Phoebus." Some of the novel's key characters were jettisoned entirely while the gargoyles of Notre Dame were added to the story by Trousdale and Wise, and portrayed as comedic friends and confidantes of Quasimodo as suggested in the novel, which reads "The other statues, the ones of monsters and demons, felt no hatred for Quasimodo…The saints were his friends and blessed him the monsters were his friends, and protected him. Thus he would pour out his heart at length to them." One of the first changes made to accommodate Disney's request was to turn the villainous Claude Frollo into a judge rather than an archdeacon, thus avoiding religious sensibilities in the finished film. "As we were exploring the characters, especially Frollo, we certainly found a lot of historical parallels to the type of mania he had: the Confederate South, Nazi Germany, take your pick," explained Wise. "Those things influenced our thinking." Producer Don Hahn evaluated that one inspiration for Frollo was found in Ralph Fiennes's performance as Amon Goeth in Schindler's List, who murders Jews yet desires his Jewish maid. For the opening sequence, Disney story veteran Burny Mattinson constructed an effective sequence that covered much exposition, although studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg felt something was missing. Following Stephen Schwartz's suggestion to musicalize the sequence, French animators Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi storyboarded the sequence to Menken and Schwartz's music resulting in "The Bells of Notre Dame". Lyricist Stephen Schwartz also worked closely with the writing team even suggesting that the audience should be left wondering what the outcome of what Phoebus would do before he douses the torch in water in defiance of Frollo. Another was, unsurprisingly, the film's conclusion. While Frollo's death was retained – and, indeed, made even more horrific – both Quasimodo and Esmerelda were spared their fates and given a happy ending. This revised ending was based in part on Victor Hugo's own libretto to a Hunchback opera, in which he had allowed Captain Phoebus to save Esmerelda from her execution. :Casting In late 1993, pop singer Cyndi Lauper was the first actor attached to the film during its initial stages. Thinking she was cast as Esmeralda, Lauper was startled to learn she was to voice a gargoyle named Quinn, and was hired one week after one reading with the directors. The development team would later come up with the names of Chaney, Laughton and Quinn – named after the actors who portrayed Quasimodo in previous Hunchback film adaptations. However, Disney's legal department objected to the proposed names of the gargoyles, fearing that the estates of Lon Chaney, Charles Laughton, or Anthony Quinn (who was alive at the time) might file a lawsuit over the use of their names so the names was dropped. Trousdale and Wise then suggested naming the characters Lon, Charles, and Anthony – which resulted in the same legal concern – before instead naming the first two gargoyles after Victor Hugo, and the third as Laverne, which was selected by Kirk Wise as a tribute to Andrews Sisters singer Laverne Andrews. Now cast as Laverne, Lauper was deemed too youthful for a friend who was to provide Quasimodo wise counsel while at the same time Sam McMurray – best known for his work on The Tracey Ullman Show – was hired for Hugo. Meanwhile, Charles Kimbrough was cast as Victor who at first was unimpressed at an animated adaptation of Hunchback, but later became rather impressed at the level of research that went into the film and how the story ideas transitioned from the novel to the screen. After several recording sessions and test screenings, Lauper and McMurray were called by the directors who regrettably released them from their roles. Jason Alexander, having voiced Abis Mal in The Return of Jafar, was cast as Hugo fulfilling a lifelong desire to be in a Disney film. Laverne was then revisioned into a wiser, mature character with Mary Wickes cast in the role. Following Wickes' death in October 1995, Jane Withers was hired to voice her six remaining lines. Mandy Patinkin was approached for the title role, but his style of portraying Quasimodo collided with the producers' demands, and Patinkin stated "'I was just there at the audition I said, 'I can't do this.'"Tom Hulce was cast as Quasimodo following his first audition for the role, and according to the actor, he noticed during the audition that the Disney executives, producers, and directors were "were staring at the floor. It looked like everyone was at a memorial service" until he noticed the floor was lined with storyboard sketches. According to Wise, the filmmakers "like to audition the voices with our eyes closed, so we see the character's face." Quasimodo was originally portrayed to be more monstrous, older and with more of a speech impediment during the early rehearsals, but Hulce commented that "we experimented, endlessly. At one point I was ready to call in and say 'Things just aren't happening.'". Ultimately, the directors desired to portray Quasimodo with a younger voice different from the previous portrayals since "Victor Hugo described Quasimodo as 20". Additionally, Hulce was allowed to do his own singing after being asked to perform a demo recording of "Out There". Desiring a huskier voice different from the leading Disney heroines, Demi Moore was cast as Esmeralda, and met with Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz on singing. After several singing demos, the actress said "You'd better get someone else,'" according to Schwartz. New York City cabaret singer Heidi Mollenhauer was selected to provide the singing voice. For the role of Phoebus, co-director Kirk Wise explained that "As we're designing the characters, we form a short list of names...to help us find the personality of the character." Subsequently, the filmmakers modeled his portrayal on the personalities of Errol Flynn and John Wayne, and "One of the names on the top of the list all the time was Kevin Kline." British actor Tony Jay, who declared his role as Frollo as his "bid for immortality", was cast after the directors worked with him in Beauty and the Beast. After watching his portrayal as Uncle Ernie in the musical The Who's Tommy, Broadway actor Paul Kandel was selected to voice Clopin. :Animation Alongside Pocahontas, storyboard work on The Hunchback of the Notre Dame was among the first to be produced for an animated film on the new Disney Feature Animation building adjacent to the main Disney lot in Burbank, which was dedicated in 1995. However, as the Feature Animation building was occupied with The Lion King and Pocahontas at the time, more animators were hired from Canada and United Kingdom to join the production team for Hunchback, and as the development phase furthered along, most of the entire animation team was moved out into a large warehouse facility on Airway in Glendale, California. As the Disney story artists, layout crew, and animators moved in their new quarters, they decided to name the building "Sanctuary." Since Who Framed Roger Rabbit, other animators hired by Disney Feature Animation were from Germany, France, Ireland, and additional ones from Canada were involved in providing animation duties at the recently opened satellite studio, Walt Disney Animation Paris, of which about 20 percent of the film was done. Meanwhile, while Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida was prepping their first in-house production then titled The Legend of Mulan, at least seven animators penned about four minutes of screentime, mostly involving Frollo and Quasimodo. Layout, cleanup, and special-effects artists provided additional support. To achieve large-scale crowd scenes, particularly for the Feast of Fools sequence and the film's climax, computer animation was used to create six types of characters - males and females either average in weight, fat, or thin - which were programmed and assigned 72 specific movements ranging from jumping and clapping. Digital technology also provided a visual sweep that freed Quasimodo to scamper around the cathedral and soar around the plaza to rescue Esmeralda. :Music The film's soundtrack includes a musical score written by Alan Menken and songs written by Menken and Stephen Schwartz. Songs include "The Bells of Notre Dame" for Clopin, "Out There" for Quasimodo, "Stay in Here" for Frollo, "Topsy Turvy" also for Clopin, "God Help The Outcast" for Esmeralda, "Heaven's Light" also for Quasimodo, "Hell Fire" also for Frollo, "A Guy Like You" for the gargoyles and lastly "The Court of Miracles" for Clopin and the gypsies. Three songs written for the film were discarded during the storyboarding process and not used: "In a Place of Miracles", "As Long As There's a Moon", and "Someday", a candidate to replace "God Help the Outcasts". Though not included in the body of the film, "Someday" is heard over the end credits, performed by R&B group All-4-One for the North American release. : Video Games In 1996, to tie in with the original theatrical release, The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Topsy Turvy Games was released by Disney Interactive for the PC and the Nintendo Game Boy, which is a collection of mini games based around the Festival of Fools that includes a variation of Balloon Fight. A world based on The Hunchback of Notre Dame, La Cité des Cloches (The City of Bells), made its debut appearance in the Kingdom Hearts series in Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. It was the first new Disney world confirmed for the game. All of the main characters except Clopin and the Archdeacon appear. Jason Alexander and Charles Kimbrough were the only actors to reprise their roles from the movie. Trivia *This was Tom Hulce's final film performance before his retirement from films. Hulce was the voice of Quasimodo in this film, and the sequel. Hulce also did Quasimodo's singing voice. *This was also Mary Wickes' (Laverne) last film. She died of cancer on October 10, 1995 before the film was released. Jane Withers provided the remaining dialogue, and provided the voice for Laverne in The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2. *During the song "A Guy Like You", the gargoyles put a wig on Quasimodo, similar to wig that Tom Hulce wore in the movie Amadeus (1985). *According to the song "Topsy Turvy," the story takes place during and after the 6th of January. However, there is no sign in the atmosphere that it is winter with the exception of the opening sequence. *Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz also worked on the music for Pocahontas. *The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the first Disney animated film to contain a production budget around $100 million dollars at the time, so in theory, it was the most expensive Disney animated film, until Tarzan three years later. *Belle also makes a cameo appearance in the film. During the song Out There, Belle is seen walking through the streets reading her book, which would make some believe that both films take place at the same time. However, this is clearly impossible, based on the fashions, technology and politics seen in Beauty and the Beast, which placed her film in the latter half of the 18th century, pre-revolutionary (pre-1789) France. Glen Keane confirmed that Belle's cameo in the film was not canonical. However, both time periods are similar in the fact that married women were viewed not as equal human beings under God (and the law of today), but as personal property and as obedient, servile slaves to their husbands that (in some extreme cases) can be bought and sold like any purchase (Gaston's behavior towards Belle and all women in his village is a testament to this, and Judge Claude Frollo exudes a similar treatment to Esmeralda in the film as well). *Directors Wise, Trousdale, and Hahn have noted that the three gargoyles might exist only in Quasimodo's imagination and thus may well be split-off pieces of his own identity. However, most of their characteristics, including Hugo's infatuation with the goat Djali, seem unique to their manifestations when present (and there is of course the question of how the gargoyles can be moving around and even helping defend the cathedral if they are not really alive). *Two of the gargoyles are named Victor and Hugo after Victor Hugo. The third gargoyle, Laverne, is named after Laverne Andrews, one of The Andrews Sisters. *According to the audio commentary on the DVD, the gargoyle that resembles a warthog (which can be seen during the climactic battle atop Notre Dame Cathedral) is actually not Pumbaa from The Lion King (1994) but the actual gargoyle that can be seen in that location on the real Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. *This was Michael Eisner's (former Disney CEO) favorite film. *The opening scene, in which Clopin sings "The Bells of Notre Dame," was originally all spoken dialogue. After two revisions, it was decided that it was too dry and boring, and so was turned into a musical number. *Jane Withers, who was hired to complete the role of Laverne following the death of Mary Wickes, had to match Wickes' voice and performance so that audiences wouldn't detect the difference. *GOOFY HOLLER: as the soldiers fall after Quasimodo pulls the rope they were climbing. *This is the 34th full-length animated film from Walt Disney. *The song "Hell Fire" is considered one of the darkest songs written for a Disney film. It was nearly cut from the film. *For the scene where Judge Frollo sings "Hellfire" and sees Esmeralda dancing in the fire before him, the MPAA insisted that the Disney animators make Esmeralda's clothing more well-defined, as she seemed nude. *The last Disney animated film to use harsh language (***, ***, hellfire). *While Quasimodo is singing 'Out There', the camera pans over Paris and zooms in on a street. In this scene, Belle from Beauty and the Beast (1991) is seen walking and reading her book (walks out the bottom of the screen, to the right of the well), Pumbaa from The Lion King (1994) is being carried on a pole by two men (carried out of the bottom of the screen, but left of the well), and another man (in a gray-blue tunic) is shaking out the Carpet from Aladdin (1992). *The film, due to its dark and sexual themes, nearly became the first animated Disney film to receive a PG rating from the MPAA in the US since The Black Cauldron (1985). *Blue and red were used to symbolize good and evil, respectively. Quasimodo's and Esmerelda's disguising cloaks are blue while the firelight Frollo is near as he plots evilly to himself reflects off his face as red. *Directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale cast Tony Jay as Frollo because they loved his voice when they worked with him on Beauty and the Beast (1991), where he voiced Monsieur D'Arque. *According to the commentary of the DVD onto when Kevin Kline did the voice of Phoebus, the directors gave Kline a sword so that he'd portray the role. They also named the horse Achilles because it was funny to hear him say "Achilles, heel." *According to the audio commentary on the DVD, Frollo's horse's name is Snowball. *To stay consistent to the architecture and details of Notre Dame, animators spent several weeks in and around the actual cathedral. They were given office space at the recently-opened Disneyland Paris in the interim. *At one point, the three gargoyles were going to be all male and named Chaney, Laughton, and Quinn - the three actors who have played Quasimodo in other adaptations of the story (Lon Chaney, Charles Laughton, Anthony Quinn). *Quasi's monologue, which begins with "What? What am I supposed to do?" and ends with "And I'm tired of trying to be something I'm not." was recorded in one take. *The Latin chants heard throughout the movie are adapted from actual Gregorian chants, including a portion of the Dies Irae music can be heard in the scene where Frollo kills Quasimodo's mother. It was part of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts famous last compositions, Requiem in D Minor. Tom Hulce (Quasimodo) played Mozart in the movie Amadeus (1985). *When supervising animator Michael Surrey (Clopin) heard the song "Court of Miracles" he noted that a portion of it was similar to "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" music used in Fantasia (1940). After this he animated Clopin lifting up his robe to skip towards the lever after Mickey Mouse's movements. *This movie is full of computer animation and CGI backgrounds. All the bells appearing throughout the movie are 3D-rendered. When Quasimodo sings "Out There" and slides down the flying buttress, it appears 3D. During "Topsy Turvy", the confetti and the crowd of hundred people are digital images. While Esmeralda sings "God Help The Outcast", the reflection of the rose window is computer-rendered. During "Hellfire", the background flames are one example of CGI. When we see the miller's home getting burned, the flames that big and appearing too fast were hard to animate traditionally, so probably the animators used computer generated images for this. When Quasimodo rappels down from Notre Dame to save Esmeralda, we can see hand-drawn animation combined with 3D scenes. *Early on in the movie during "Out There", there is an overhead shot of Notre Dame and the courtyard from a bird's-eye view. During this shot, look closely at one of the buildings in the bottom left corner of the screen - one building has a satellite dish on it. *After the film's initial release a limited edition printing of Victor Hugo's novel was also released. It contained original artwork and an introduction by producer Don Hahn. *The film had its premiere on June 19, 1996 at the Superdome in New Orleans, utilizing six enormous screens, and was preceded by a parade through the French Quarter. The song "Someday" was sung over the credits by the group All-4-One, but the European version replaced them with the British band Eternal. *The multiplane effect was used in several scenes. When Quasimodo sings "Out There", the camera pans over Paris and seems to look three-dimensional. Additionally, the camera pans through the Parisian buildings and we see the Palace of Justice. *This is the only Disney animated film that does not feature any trees. *At the end of the film as the camera zooms out from the Notre Dame cathedral, the pigeons all gather on Laverne again. She shoos them off and asks them if they ever migrate. The fact is, rock doves (the most common breed of pigeon seen in urban areas) do NOT migrate, at least not in the same sense other birds migrate. They may move from one part of a city to another, but for the most part they stay in the same area. *One of two movies released in 1996 in which Demi Moore plays an exotic dancer who catches the eye of, and ultimately brings down, a man in a position of power. The other film is Striptease (1996). *Esmeralda is barefoot for the entire movie. *Supervising animator Andreas Deja really wanted to animate Esmeralda from the beginning of the film's conception, which would've been a stark departure for him - he is best known for animating villains like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast (1991), Jafar in Aladdin (1992), and Scar in The Lion King (1994). When that position went to Tony Fucile, Deja went on to supervise the animation of the titular character in Walt Disney Pictures' next animated film, Hercules (1997). * This film along with other Disney films that were made in the 1990s belong to the era known as Disney Renaissance. A direct-to-video sequel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2, was released in 2002. all information on Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame came from http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/The_Hunchback_of_Notre_Dame Gallery